Saturday, February 25, 2006

The Advocate, NYC Council Speaker Quinn are both wrong regarding Queens politics

In the March 14, 2006 cover-date issue of The Advocate which hit my mailbox today, Sean Kennedy asks newly annointed New York City Council Speaker Christine Quinn a few questions including:

Q: Much of your support came from Queens, Brooklyn and the Bronx. Those are not exactly progressive hotbeds compared with Manhattan's West Side.

Christine responds:They may not be the West side of Manhattan, but as I had the honor and fun of traveling around the city for the past couple of years running for speaker, there is no borough that I've gone to that where I haven't met or interacted with with an LGBT person. And in the city of New York, although we're obviously concentrated somewhat in some neighborhoods more than in others, the truth is we are really everywhere - and all of the county Democratic organizations now have active LGBT members. This victory is a reflection of how hard rank-and-file LGBT Democrats have worked and how much progress they have made in moving our community forward in politics and activism in this city.

Hm, good answer! Although a bit misleading. Manhattan writers often see the outer boroughs as scary hinterlands devoid of any progressive communities, much less a visible LGBT presence (anything outside Manhattan becomes "Brokeback Mountain") and Christine is right to call Sean on his assumptions. But, as I wrote in "Christine Quinn, NYC Council Speaker" (Jan. 12, 2006), progressive Democratic politics in Queens is not what necessarily got the Queens Democratic Party bosses to endorse Christine for the Speakership position. Indeed, she might be a tad too beholden to Tom Manton, Chair of the Queens Denocratic Party, and not necessarily the most progressive of Democratic party leaders in the city.